Gabb

Who thinks Tesla is behind with Optimus? I get the "we don't want our competitors to copy us" argument for demos, but couldn't Tesla just put some gloves and a shirt over Optimus and give us a quick update into what they have cooking? It's been QUIET out there from the Optimii Fwiw I don't think Tesla's behind, I think part of it is optimizing differently and taking different paths to market. NEO is going teleoperator route to ship to customer homes for training. Tesla will likely do plenty of learning in the factories with initial deployment there. The list of differences goes on tbh But the great news is 1X is an American-Norwegian company (main operations in America, founded in Norway) and the faster the market has options from American manufacturers, the better (some motors come from Norway). The main 1X factory currently is in Hayward, CA (~58k sq. ft. + 10k unit capacity/yr.) but a bigger location is set to come online in San Carlos later this year (~231k sq. ft. to hit 100k units/yr.) Plus the VP of Operations is a former SpaceX employee (Vikram Kothari - he spent 8 years there and nearly a decade at Microsoft in hw supply chain leadership)

Introducing NEO’s 25 Degrees of Freedom, tendon-driven hands — nearing or surpassing human-level dexterity, strength, speed, and reliability. For seventy years, robotics worked around the hand problem. The humanoid bet is the reverse: it lives or dies at the fingertips.

Tomorrow we’re unveiling the most advanced robotic hand in human history

Tomorrow we’re unveiling the most advanced robotic hand in human history

There’s no way they’re not selling these robots at a considerable loss. Hands in this range go for at least $20,000 alone normally especially outside China. Most humanoids on the market are also $20,000+. Even a Unitree G1, you’re not gonna find one for below $30,000 in the US and that’s the base model. “But the R1 is $5,000.” That’s an RC toy, stop it. This is a huge gamble. The total loss could be well above $500 million. With all the R&D and infrastructure they need, this can easily eat up their entire war chest and then some. Their deployment strategy is also untested. They say they’re hoping for full autonomy by 2027 but no one knows what will actually happen. They won’t admit it publicly but there is a very high chance of failure. If they do pull it off, it would be huge though. Or maybe they’ll get nationalized so Trump can turn NEOs into humanoid soldiers.

“But tendons won’t work!” Millions of cycles under load later… I hope you’ve accepted it’s a skill issue

NEO’s Hands An API to the Physical World